Meet our friend Greg Reitman : two hats and one passion for film as a Filmmaker and Festival founder of The Blue Water Film Festival in San Diego CA.

Interview by Bruno Chatelin during Berlinale 2024.

Watch the Festival Trailer

Greg Reitman producer of the Sundance Audience Award Winner doc Fuel (2008)

Greg Reitman (May 10, 1971) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and author.

He is best known for directing, producing and writing Hollywood’s Magical Island- Catalina (2003).

Education 

Reitman earned his Bachelor of Arts from University of Massachusetts Amherst (1993)  and holds a certificate in Film & Television, Marketing & Distribution from UCLA. He received a master certificate in Creative Producing from Tel Aviv University, and has studied at Hokkaido University in Japan and the University of Florence in Italy. 

Career 

Reitman's first feature film, Hollywood's Magical Island: Catalina, was narrated by Peter Coyote. His second feature film was Fuel.

His third feature film, Rooted in Peace, in 2016 debut at the United Nations, won the New York Festival Best Feature Documentary, Impact Award for Excellence, released theatrically, and subsequently streamed on Amazon Prime, and iTunes. The film features Deepak Chopra, Donovan, Mike Love, David Lynch, Greg Reitman, Pete Seeger, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. 

In 2004, Reitman self-published the mini coffee table book Hollywood’s Magical Island - Catalina. In 2016, after the movie Rooted in Peace was released, Llewellyn Publications published his work, Rooted in Peace: An Inspiring Story of Finding Peace. 

In 2008 after producing the acclaimed documentary Fuel, Reitman was asked to chronicle climate change and the movement as a journalist first for The Environmentalist and then The Huffington Post. His environmental articles published include Chasing Ice - The Climate Debate Is Over;^[9] UN Launches Year of the Int’l Forest; Is Climate Change Reversible? Can Regenerative Agriculture Farming Solve the Climate Crisis?;^[10] “If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front”; Investigates the Making And Unraveling of a Radical Environmental Group; “Ode to Peace” to Resound Around the World on International Day of Peace;  The Climate War Comes to Australia: The Great Barrier Reef; The man behind Earth Day Texas Trammel S Crow leads the nation honoring the 45th Anniversary of Earth Day; Your Brain on Ocean: Neuroscience and Ocean Exploration; Global Green kicks off Oscar Week with Singer/Songwriter Stevie Wonder; and Madécasse Chocolate Raises the Bar this Earth Day in providing Money for Madagascar Disaster Relief. 

In 2014 Reitman was a speaker at the Aspen Renewable Energy Summit. 

Blue Water Institute 

In 2020, Reitman founded the Blue Water Institute, a non-profit conservation organization. He also launched the Blue Water Film Festival, an annual event curating ocean, water, nature content in either short, narrative, documentary and animated formats hosted in San Diego, California.